The Christmas Day bombing attempt by Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab quickly became
a another tiresome political issue in the United States, yet another opportunity
for the Republicans to bash the President. Why, they ask, is he being charged
in a court of law, instead of being locked up in a secret prison and treated
like an "enemy combatant"? This incident, they claim, is part and
parcel of the Obama administration’s flawed approach to the "war on terrorism":
we’re treating the terrorists like ordinary criminals, they complain, instead
of mad dogs who deserve water-boarding and worse.

As usual, the GOP leadership is adding nothing to the discussion with its
partisan brickbats, and pervertedfocus on the benefits of torture, and this
incident in particular only underscores their sorry irrelevance. Because the
real question, one that was instantly asked by all sorts of non-Republicans
in the wake of the incident, is: How did he ever get on a plane in the first
place, when his own father went to the authorities over concerns that his son
had been "radicalized" – and had subsequently disappeared?

Of course, Republicans asked [.pdf] this question, too, but then went on to reiterate
their pro-torture "enemy combatant" stance, reinforced with calls
to extend the "war on terrorism" to Yemen, from whence Mr. Abdulmutallab
was supposedly dispatched by al-Qaeda. This whole mantra, however, is a meaningless
non sequitur when it comes to the pertinent question, which is: how, after
all the post-9/11 peregrinations and preventative programs, all the billions
spent and the alleged reorganization of our intelligence-gathering capabilities
implemented, did we fail to "connect the dots," as the cliché
goes?

If those geniuses in Washington failed to connect the dots, then one of the
passengers on Northwest Flight 253 is drawing our attention to a dot that isn’t
mentioned in most news reports, one that gives us a whole new perspective on
the Christmas Day would-be bomber and how he managed to evade routine screening
procedures.

The discovery of the missing dot is provided courtesy of Kurt Haskell, a Michigan
lawyer, who was on that flight. He and his wife were sitting in front of the
attendant’s desk playing cards at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport when Haskell
took note of an odd couple walking up to the desk. Odd because they seemed
mismatched: a lanky ill-dressed black male who looked no more than 16 years
old, and a well-dressed somewhat portly older man who looked Indian and spoke
English with an American accent. Haskell strained to hear: what the well-dressed
man was saying to the attendant was that he needed to get his companion – who
had no passport – on the flight.

The attendant insisted that every passenger must have a passport, but the
well-dressed man, undeterred, explained "He’s a refugee from Sudan,"
and furthermore averring "We do this all the time."

The attendant, properly impressed with this authoritative display, shrugged
and said: Well, you’ll have to speak to my superior. The well-dressed man and
his charge disappeared down a hallway – and the next time Haskell saw the skinny
kid, he was trying to blow up the plane.

I reported on this story when it first came out in the Detroit News:
it soon spread to the national media, where it was given a certain amount of
credence, and US officials and the Dutch – who had deflected Haskell’s own
efforts to get at the truth – could no longer ignore it. Both the FBI and the
Dutch authorities denied there was any truth to the story: the Dutch claimed airport video showed no evidence of the well-dressed man accompanying Abdulmutallab,
and US officials completely discounted Haskell’s eyewitness testimony. Haskell
claims a major media outlet that had planned to cover the story told him they
were canceling the interview because his account had been proved to be an "urban
myth."

Haskell’s fifteen minutes were up, and his name faded from news accounts.
But his startling account of what happened at Schiphol airport was unobtrusively
confirmed the other day by ABC News in a tangentially-related story entitled
"Alert:
Female Suicide Bombers May Be Heading Here From Yemen," with the alluring
subhead: "U.S. Agents Told Women Believed Connected to Al Qaeda May Have
Western Appearance and Passports." At the very tail end of this gripping
narrative of Islamist Mata-Haris in disguise, we get the following tidbit:

"As part of the additional scrutiny, federal agents are conducting
extensive background checks on every passenger who flew to Detroit on the Northwest
flight in case one of them might have been sent as a “spotter” on the mission.

"Federal agents also tell ABCNews.com they are attempting to identify
a man who passengers said helped Abdulmutallab change planes for Detroit when
he landed in Amsterdam from Lagos, Nigeria.

"Authorities had initially discounted the passenger accounts, but
the agents say there is a growing belief the man have played a role to make
sure Abdulmutallab ‘did not get cold feet.’"

This rather offhand admission that Haskell’s account was truthful – without
naming him – is stunning in several respects: Haskell, for one, is justifiably
angry that, after trying to discredit him as somehow delusional, or even a
liar, they finally acknowledge the truth without issuing an accompanying apology.
He even has a theory as to why this is so: he cites US government officials
testifying before congress as saying they would allow someone on the terrorist
watch list into the US on certain occasions and given certain circumstances,
in order to keep tabs on them and uncover their contacts in this country.

The well-dressed man, according to Haskell, must have been an American, and
not only that, but a US government official, whose ironic task it was to shepherd
the young terrorist aboard the plane– the idea being that this would somehow
facilitate our intelligence-gathering capabilities. The US government, he concludes,
is covering up an instance when its harebrained James Bond-ish antics nearly
caused the death of hundreds.

This theory is based on several questionable assumptions, primary among them
the idea that the well-dressed man is an American, never mind a US government
employee. How does he know that? One could very well have an American accent
without having been born in this country.

In addition, Haskell’s theory is far too complex and definitive, given what
we know for sure. Details about the pre-boarding interview with Abdulmutallab
– every passenger has to undergo a personal interview before getting on a plane
at Schiphol – have not been released, and that airport video they claim shows
no sign of the well-dressed man is still being withheld.

What we do know is this: Abdulmutallab had help getting on that plane. From
whom, we don’t yet know. We also know he had at least one accomplice onboard:
not the well-dressed Indian-looking man, but another Indian-looking man whose
baggage was singled out by bomb-sniffing dogs in Detroit and was led away in
handcuffs. This part of Haskell’s account was also initially denied by the
authorities, who came up with four or five different explanations before some
of the other passengers, including one appearing on MSNBC, stepped forward
and corroborated his story. We still don’t know the fate or identity of the
other Indian, and US officials have simply stopped addressing the matter.

Who was that well-dressed man? One would hardly expect the facilitator of
al-Qaeda’s latest attempt to strike at the United States to be an Indian-looking
guy wearing an expensive suit and brandishing an American accent. An actor
playing a part? But what role, and what’s the narrative, the story-line?

We are all of us potential novelists when it comes to extrapolating the known
facts, and the line between rational inquiry and fiction-writing is all too
often blurred by our prejudices and other emotions – in Haskell’s case, having
been through a hair-raising experience, only to find that his own government
seems less than interested in preventing a reoccurrence, and is, instead, more
concerned with calling his own credibility into question.

Without venturing too far out into the speculative realm, and taking only
what we know for sure as our guide, Haskell’s account and its apparent verification
by US government sources raises an interesting question, one that has lurked
in the background ever since September 11, 2001 – did al-Qaeda act alone?

The official story [.pdf] of the 9/11 attacks – that nineteen Arab men, armed only
with box-cutters and their own fanaticism, succeeded in taking control of four
airliners, and crashing two of them into the World Trade Center and another
into the Pentagon, and that they did this with no outside help, all by their
lonesome selves – was never very convincing. Numerous accounts of unusual activities
on the ground in the US in the months prior to 9/11 long ago convinced me that
at least one foreign intelligence agency had some indication of what was in
the works, and not only did nothing to stop Mohammed Atta and his confreres,
but also effectively shielded them from our own efforts at surveillance.

In short, al-Qaeda had allies in a position to assist in the success of the
hijacking plot – and so did the Christmas Day bomber.

One needn’t accept any of this – that al-Qaeda has useful allies, not all
of whom are Islamic fanatics – to find Haskell’s account, and the US government’s
backhanded acknowledgment of its veracity, more than a bit disturbing. What
I want to know is: why is the "mainstream" news media silent on this
story? It’s a lot more interesting and relevant than ninety-nine percent of
the crap they cover: did that "Dateline" reporter who told Haskell
he was purveying an "urban myth," get the word from her government
sources to put the kibosh on the story?

The principle of secrecy – which is the only principle, aside from constant
lying, that US government officials seem to honor these days – forbids any
public discussion of the real issues underlying our eternal "war on terrorism."
Even though this struggle defines our foreign policy and rationalizes the most
injurious assaults on our civil liberties since the Civil War, we aren’t allowed
to know much about many of the particulars.

Thus US officials and their media amen corner can get away with portraying
what they call the Long War as a simple black-and-white struggle of bad guys
versus good, al-Qaeda versus the West, in which the former utilizes all the
tricks of asymmetric warfare while we rely on the military resources of a great
power to pursue the enemy in his lair. Every once in a while, however, facts
emerge that don’t fit the official narrative, and the Christmas Day bombing
attempt was one such occasion, providing additional evidence of a more complex
reality waiting to be unearthed.

Could it be that the war on terrorism is a multi-sided conflict, a deadly
game involving at least one or possibly several more players than previously
thought? The revelation that Abdulmutallab had enablers, one for sure and possibly
two at the scene of the crime, certainly points in that direction.

201202861035 Responseshttp%3A%2F%2Foriginal.antiwar.com%2Fjustin%2F2010%2F02%2F02%2Fwho-was-that-well-dressed-man%2FWho+Was+That+Well-Dressed+Man%3F2010-02-03+06%3A00%3A05Justin+Raimondohttp%3A%2F%2Foriginal.antiwar.com%2F%3Fp%3D2012028610 to “Who Was That Well-Dressed Man?”

Kurt Haskel should be man of the year for Time, but he will probably be forgotten by the time the 'man' is chosen.. I believe I was one of the first commentators on the last bit by Justin about this story… Strange how things slip out in a most serendipitous slip or aside… Strange how some of the MOST outrageous events of our lives saw almost NO scrutiny, just a rush to judgment…. Strange how the detained "other" passenger ends up being nameless and faceless as the tramps on the grassy knoll on Nov 22….

It makes me wonder if we haven't reached that Orwellian period of perpetual war among Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia…….And we, the audience of this gruesome charade and it's deadly toll ……
A million dead in Iraq…….. Whatz the plan for Afghanistan…???

"The Christmas Day attempt by the son of a prominent Nigerian banker and business tycoon connected closely to top Nigerian leaders to detonate a chemical improvised explosive device aboard Delta Airlines flight 253 from Amsterdam Schiphol to Detroit was a false flag operation carried out by the intelligence tripartite grouping of the CIA, Mossad, and India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), according to WMR’s Asian intelligence sources who closely monitor the activities of the three agencies in India and Southeast Asia."

Justin – a most strangely muted and out of character editorial from you today on the anomalies surrounding Flight 253 – very odd.

There are too many questions arising from the the conflicting & ongoing changes official explanations to the fairly straightforward observations outlined by Kurt Haskell that I would have thought would have fully piqued & primed your curiosity and skeptical & investigative genes – but in this instance apparently not.

One might almost surmise that you too have been got at – or at the very least that you are revealing a similar blind spot as you have often revealed in the past in relation to your Achilles heel with regard to anything related to Russian/Soviet history/motivation.

I have and continue to be a great admirer of yours – but today i believe you have let me – and yourself – down with this out of sorts, unconvincing and rather pallid piece.

Please don't lose your touch because the enormity of what could possibly be a false flag exercise of the most horrific proportions is perhaps even inconceivable to you – as is your apparent conviction that nothing of any good ever emerged from the Communist fold – the mindset doesn't fit what we know of you

I'm not buying any of it, so there! For all we know Haskel could be a dis-info agent working for CIA, MI5, MI6, RAW, Mossad, etc. Not saying he is but who the fuck knows. #1, It's going take a LOT, a REAL LOT to convince me this guy was actually going to blow his f'n balls off. #2, why wouldn't he use the restroom where he could play with his balls all he wanted without prying eyes? I mean come on, this is a case where they repeat a lie often enough and it becomes fact. The bigger the lie……
Bottom line, the mission was successful.

What I want to know is: why in 2010 is Justin Raimondo seemingly so reluctant to write the word "Mossad"?

After all, in 2002 you wrote, "BY WAY OF DECEPTION: Israel pulls a fast one – and gets caught," and in 2003 you wrote a great little book titled The Terror Enigma: 9/11 and the Israeli Connection.

A few simple questions to help focus the mind:

Which company controlled security at Schiphol Airport? Hint: It was set up by former members of a certain country's domestic intelligence agency.
Which former Homeland Security chief was touting body scanners in the wake of the Christmas Day incident? Hint: His mother is reported to have ties to a certain foreign intelligence agency?
Which senator immediately called for attacks on Yemen? Hint: John McCain never leaves home without him.

And what Middle Eastern country which benefits most from "Islamic terrorism" do they all have in common?

I think Haskell does the right thing in trying to connect the dots. Even if it means to completely reverse one's own perception, or story. A fact is not a fact until a story is told.

But another news story today of a multiple bomb attack on some pakistani villages, out of revenge for 1) a suicide bomber killing 5 CIA men performing a continuous string of INTERNATIONALLY ILLEGAL KINDS OF WARFARE 2) the shooting down of one of those drones used in murderous and illegal activities.

Doesn't it tell you, that the purpose of those war acts is not to reach a peace, but to reach a state of surrender? A simple attempt to make the population MORE scared of the US terrorism, than of local terrorists.

And regarding Guantanamo and other infamous places: The fact, that prisoners are kept, even if they are found to be 1) not proven guilty 2) posing no clear danger, and thus to be released? My long standing story on that was, that one feared damage to the political standing of american operatives and institutions.

BUT WHAT IF IT IS DELIBERATELY DONE NOTWITHSTANDING INJUSTICE, SO AS TO FORCE THE WHOLDE WORLD, AS WELL AS THE AMERICAN POPULATION, TO ACCEPT ANY VIOLENCE OR INJUSTICE, SO LONG THAT IT MIGHT SUPPORT THE VIEW OF AMERICAN IMPERIALIST SUPERIORITY IN THE UNIVERSE, AND EVERYBODY ELSE TO OBEY.

So that it is not some accident or bad luck, that stories of torture, illegal imprisonment, killings of civilians, injustice, lack of investigation, ofuscation can be found. NO, THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT PEOPLE OF THE WHOLE WORLD ARE TO BE TAUGHT NO MATTER WHAT! Look! Be scared! Obey!

Justin,I like to remind you that the Shoe and Panty bombers used PETN explosives–here is the sick joke done on Americans–Matches or any type of liquid does not explode PETN explosives. (PETN is sold readily as camp fuel)It takes a high explosive electric blasting cap detonater–Lead Azide.Both supposed bombers are in jail on a government scam.Shoe bomber's matches were wet due to high sweat in his socks,please lord,release the patsy from jail.
Justin you missed one glareing point of interest–Mr> Chertoff has a big interest in the airport body scanners.Canada order over 65 units months prior to the Xmas staged }}}}}} bombing

Yes. BUT what if the 9-11 was reinforced to bring about that new world order – that of total domination. And also internally inside the US. Then all those mistakes and missing documentation and examination would become meaningful in a totally MORE frightening way.

At least I, at some point, refuse to believe in neglect and failure of oversights. And the complete lack of responding to criticism with facts or studies – just the hinted at idiocy of the whistleblowers?

I would say, that the sorry bunch of apologetics, ought to raise at least one person representing the population to the guts of demanding an automatic and verifiable documentation of actions taken by the US. Really, that is exactly what a german emperor demanded from his bureacracy in the 18xx years. Complete trust and justice.

Formerly I thought this dysfunctional arrangement of the US diverse secret services, could be the explanation for the many mistakes, disappearances, injustice. That such a multilevelled organization simply could not function, when secrecy and lack of information, or distributing false ones, was input and output. No rational mind could work on that!

But since everybody probably can see that as a fact, and nobody demands oversight, justice, documentation or responsibility?l. My conclusion is, that most likely it is a deliberate attempt of a coup d'etat.

Washington –The State Department didn't revoke the visa of foiled terrorism suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab because federal counterterrorism officials had begged off revocation, a top State Department official revealed Wednesday.

Patrick F. Kennedy, an undersecretary for management at the State Department, said Abdulmutallab's visa wasn't taken away because intelligence officials asked his agency not to deny a visa to the suspected terrorist over concerns that a denial would've foiled a larger investigation into al-Qaida threats against the United States.

"Revocation action would've disclosed what they were doing," Kennedy said in testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security. Allowing Adbulmutallab to keep the visa increased chances federal investigators would be able to get closer to apprehending the terror network he is accused of working with, "rather than simply knocking out one solider in that effort."

9 scientists, one of them Niels Harrit from Uni of Copenhagen (he was interviewed on TV 2 News in Denmark), have examined some of the dust from WTC for 18 months and concluded that it wasn´t the planes that brought down the three buildings but nano-thermite. They wrote a research paper on their findings. Science is science – or what ?

It strikes me that too much is being made of the cool level headed tone of this article…. There is no reason to go postal until much more information is sorted out……Like Who was that MYSTERY MAN.. What is his nationality, ethnic background and what state's passport was he traveling on, where was HIS visa issued or did he come from a stats which does not need a visa to enter the U.S…. Let's look at the tape of the airport scene at Amsterdam airport…… The very WORST thing antiwar.com could do would be to assert some wacko conspiracy theory which would deflect open, cautious analysis…
Something went wrong with the Christmas bombing event, and that something is Kurt Haskell. He is you may know a 911 skeptic….. He is cool and quite measured… We should follow his lead…

This was very likely an Israeli false flag operation that US Intel knew nothing about. The subsequent confused and near hysterical reaction of US authorities certainly suggests that they had no cover story ready at hand.

Israel has a long history of false flag ops against the US They have no concern that these attacks will be publicly aired by our own Govt. Astonishingly, our Govt covers up these Israeli assaults. The 1967 attack on the USS Liberty is one such infamous attack covered up by Govt and no Congress has ever investigated the attack. Suvivors are still waiting for justice. In other instances such as the barracks bombing in Beirut, these were detected in planning by the MOSSAD, but they kept the info to themselves and allowed the attack to go forward. More than 260 Marines lost their lives. Probably something similar occurred on 9/11.

Our own Govt has been complicit in the various Israel false flag ops and consequent cover ups. Israeli agents are active at all levels of our Govt and control what is and what isn't released to Congress and to the public.

And there you have it. That a "known" terrorist is "allowed" on board a flight tells you that your life, in the eyes of the State doesn't mean shit. If the dude actually did blow up the plane then it was because of "terrorism" and our so-called saviors would never spill the beans that they had a hand in bringing it about. That would be, like, having to tell the truth. And that might cost them their jobs, or more, so we mustn't have any of that now.

Christmas Bomber was allowed into the US by US intelligence services, regardless of the possibility that he would kill US passengers!

Why isn't the Post, NYT, and other MSM reporting this truth:

This was a spooky ploy, and NO media other than WSWS is saying boo about the truth behind the facade.

"A January 27 hearing of the House Committee on Homeland Security established that US intelligence agencies stopped the State Department from revoking the US visa of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The Nigerian student, whom US officials suspected of being affiliated with the Yemeni terrorist group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, attempted to set off a bomb on Northwest Flight 253 into Detroit on Christmas Day. Revocation of Abdulmutallab’s visa would have prevented him from boarding the airplane."

This link is the complete link to WSWS report — sorry for previous shortened link.

"The revelation that US intelligence agencies made a deliberate decision to allow Abdulmutallab to board the commercial flight, without any special airport screening, has been buried in the media. As of this writing, nearly a week after the hearing, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times have published no articles on the subject. Nor have the broadcast or cable media reported on it."

"Under questioning by the committee chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, Kennedy [State Dept Under Sect.] explained why the State Department might not revoke the US visa of a suspected terrorist: “We will revoke the visa of any individual who is a threat to the United States, but we do take one preliminary step. We ask our law enforcement and intelligence community partners, ‘Do you have eyes on this person and do you want us to let this person proceed under your surveillance so that you may potentially break a larger plot?’”

He added: “And one of the members [of the intelligence community]—and we’d be glad to give you that out of [open session]—in private—said, ‘Please, do not revoke this visa. We have eyes on this person. We are following this person who has the visa for the purpose of trying to roll up an entire network, not just stop one person.’”

This only proves what many of us have been saying all along. Most of the terrorist acts are staged or allowed to happen primarily by the Mossad. Our government is powerless to do anything about it. This includes the Kennedy assassination as well as 9/11. The Zionist entity is anxious to keep us in a constant state of war for their benefit.

After the episode in Detroit it should be perfectly clear that 911 was an inside job as well. The Kennedy assassination also falls into that category. The perpitraitors of the Detroit incident had no concern about the safety of the passengers. Their primary concern was to keep the war on terrorism going .

Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com, and a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute. He is a contributing editor at The American Conservative, and writes a monthly column for Chronicles. He is the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement [Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993; Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2000], and An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard [Prometheus Books, 2000].